by Cross, Amy
“That sounds too good to be true,” Martha mutters.
“Come and see,” Lucy says, gesturing for us to join her at the window. “Come on, I mean it. This is the first time we've been high enough in the building for you to get a glimpse. I want you to see what we're going to be fighting for. I want you to understand where we'll all be in one week's time.”
I glance at Martha, and then I get to my feet and limp over to where Lucy is standing.
“Look beyond those buildings,” she says, “beyond the main part of the city. Out there on the outskirts, can you make out what looks like a kind of military base?”
“Maybe,” I reply, squinting slightly. “Yeah.”
“That's the entrance to Project Atherius,” she explains. “They've gone to great lengths to make sure that it seems pretty innocuous from the outside, but we know the truth. Do you see the main gate?”
“I think so.”
“We're going to get through there. We're going to overrun the place, and we're going to get to the underground facility, which is the most important part. That's where the big stuff is, it's where they keep all their secrets.”
“Secrets?” I turn to Martha who's still sitting on a table at the far end of the room. As I expected, she looks extremely dubious.
“You need to stick around and join us,” Lucy continues, her voice filled with excitement. “The entire future of the human race is waiting for us in that place, and we won't be denied. They could have chosen to let us in, but they didn't. Fine. We'll force our way in, and then everything will be okay again. That's our future out there.”
She turns to me, as I lean closer to the window. Squinting a little harder, I can just about make out what looks like a gate in the distance.
“We'll be there this time in a week,” Lucy adds. “Soon, Project Atherius will be ours. And if they still resist, then that's their choice. We'll just have to go to war.”
Day 355
Elizabeth
A single black feather floats down from the sky and lands on the bare concrete floor. I stare for a moment, watching the feather until it turns to dust, and then I watch as the individual dust particles simply vanish.
“It's okay,” a familiar, comforting voice says nearby. “She's stable.”
I blink, and in an instant I find that I'm on my side in the lighthouse's main room. I can see the table nearby, and I realize after a few seconds that I'm cold. Like, really cold, and I start shivering. I start to sit up, and that's when I realize that something feels very different. Looking down, I'm shocked to see that I'm wearing completely different clothes. My legs are clad in a pair of jeans that I've never seen before, and when I look at my arms I find that I'm wearing a completely unfamiliar t-shirt. These clothes are a little baggy, too, as if they don't quite fit properly. Finally, I notice that my fake foot is missing.
“What the...”
At least the pain is gone. I put a hand on my belly, and for a moment I swear I can still somehow feel an echo of the pain. It's as if blades were slicing through my guts, but – wherever they came from – they're gone now. I press a little against the front of the t-shirt, to check whether the pain returns, but I genuinely seem to have somehow come out the other side. I take another look around for a moment, and then finally I start to haul myself up. Without my fake foot, walking is going to be extra difficult, but then I notice the foot resting on the counter.
It's been cleaned.
It looks as good as new.
I grab the foot and take a seat. Once the foot is in place, I get up again and start limping to the open door. I still feel a little sore, as if my stomach muscles have had a real workout, but frankly I'm still extremely relieved that the pain is gone. And then, as I reach the doorway and look outside, I see that Wendy is sitting slumped in a chair, staring out at the bright blue sky.
After a moment, she turns and looks at me.
“So you're still alive, huh?” she says. “That's quite remarkable. You should be dead.”
“Where are Patrick and Sammy?” I ask.
She nods in the other direction. Turning, I see a patch of disturbed soil, and I realize after a few seconds that a grave appears to have been dug. I limp over, and I flinch as I see Patrick and Sammy at the bottom of the grave. My first thought is that I can maybe do something to save them, but then I realize that there's no hope. Their dead eyes are staring up toward the sky, and it's quite clear that there's nothing anyone could do for them.
I turn back to Wendy.
“I wanted it to be quick,” she explains. “Not drawn out. You have to understand, everything I did was rooted in mercy. I couldn't sit around and wait for my darling husband, and my beautiful daughter, to starve. Or, worse, for them to get killed by zombies. Or, even worse than all of that, for them to become zombies. There's simply no way that I could ever sit by and watch that happen.”
“What did you do?” I ask.
“That was a lovely meal the other night, wasn't it?” she continues, and now she has a hint of tears in her eyes. “It's exactly how I wanted it to be. Graceful. Fun. Touching. Of course, Patrick and Sammy didn't know it at the time, but it was my way of saying goodbye to them, of having one final family dinner. I'd been thinking of doing it for a while, but the boat never seemed to be the right place. And then I noticed some Hygeia's Wort growing nearby. That's a very poisonous plant, Elizabeth. The chance just seemed too good. I couldn't pass it up.”
“You poisoned them?”
“For their own good. I knew there'd be pain. I didn't think it'd be quite so bad, but at the same time I had to make sure that I gave them enough. I managed to hide the leaves in the seagull meat. No matter the pain they felt, I know it was better than the alternative and I'm sure they realized that at the end. They only suffered for a few minutes, and that's better than weeks or months.”
“You -”
“I'm a mother and a wife,” she adds firmly, interrupting me. “I protected my family. Don't you dare even think about judging me.” She pauses. “I tried to offer you the same mercy. It should have worked, but for some reason you pulled through. You were sick for well over a day, but eventually you passed the Hygeia's Wort. I washed you and put you in a set of Sammy's clothes, by the way. There's no need to thank me, I was only doing what was right.”
“You poisoned me as well?” I stammer, shocked by how calm she seems.
“For your own good.”
Staring at her, I realize that she's completely insane.
“Hope's a killer,” she continues, reaching out and picking up the tracking device that was removed from my arm. “That's why I destroyed this wretched thing.”
“You did what?”
I start limping toward her, but she tosses the device at me. I manage to catch it, and I'm shocked to see that it's been broken and twisted in the middle.
“You have to face the truth, Elizabeth. No-one's coming to find you. No-one's going to magically track you down. The world isn't ending. It has ended, already. You and me, we're just the stragglers who can't help clinging on.”
“You had no right to do this!” I tell her angrily.
“Everyone has the right to teach other people a lesson,” she replies. “Everyone has a right to help.”
“You had no right!”
Panicking, I start trying to fix the device. My father put this in my arm for a reason, and it's still completely possible that he might find me. I quickly find, however, that the device has been ripped open, and that the wires are all torn and damaged. Maybe someone else could fix this thing, someone with a little knowledge of electronics, but I don't have a chance.
“The fact that you're upset,” Wendy continues, “just proves that you needed a helping hand. I'm sorry your own parents weren't around to do that, but at least I was able to step in. A mother's instinct is still worth a few things, even in this screwed-up world.”
“This didn't belong to you!” I stammer, still trying in vain to make the tracker work again. “
Tell me exactly what you did! Tell me how to undo it!”
“Impossible.”
“Tell me!”
“It's over, Elizabeth. Trying to fight on just means inflicting unnecessary pain upon yourself. I very nearly ended your life while you were unconscious, but that seemed a little cruel. I wanted to wait and see if you woke up, so that I could explain myself. I didn't want you to think that I'm some kind of monster.”
“You murdered your husband and daughter!” I yell.
“I saved them.”
“You poisoned them!” I shout, tossing the device aside and limping toward her. “They died in agony!”
“It was the best way.”
“They were crying out! They were screaming!”
“I know. I could hear them.”
“You -”
Suddenly she raises her right arm, aiming a gun straight at my face.
“The only reason I didn't poison myself,” she explains, “is that I needed to be around, in case things went wrong. I only have one bullet. There's some more of the Hygeia's Wort in the kitchen, I left some out. I don't understand how you survived, but there's a triple dose on the chopping board. I'd advise you to take it, brace yourself for a moment of pain, and then accept that your suffering is over.”
Staring at her, I realize that she's completely serious. There must be something seriously wrong with her, because she seems to actually think that she's done the right thing.
“How did you survive, anyway?” she asks. “That stuff should kill anyone.”
“I'm a little tougher than most people,” I reply, since I don't really want to explain the time when I turned into a zombie. That has to be what saved me, though; obviously my body is still a little different these days.
“Good luck, Elizabeth,” she continues, before placing the barrel of the gun directly under her chin and aiming up into her head. “Take the easy way out. Don't suffer, not when there's no point. Go with dignity.”
“You're insane,” I reply.
“I want to watch.”
“You want to what?”
“I don't like to think of people suffering,” she explains. “If I go before you, you might change your mind. You might forget, and that would be tragic.”
“You want to watch me kill myself?”
“I like things to be neat.”
“You've got to be kidding,” I tell her. “You just murdered your husband and daughter and now -”
“I saved them.”
“You poisoned them!”
“I saved them from the apocalypse!”
“They still had a chance!”
“No!” Getting up, she steps toward me, and there's real anger in her eyes. “That's exactly my point,” she continues, and now her voice is trembling with anger. “That's how they felt, and they were wrong. You've fought long and hard, Elizabeth, but now's the time to give up. To slide into death. To accept that fighting on and on forever is completely ludicrous.”
“You're wrong,” I tell her. “I'll never stop fighting.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Then that's just sad,” she replies. “I feel so sorry for you, but it's too late for me to stop you now. I hope you change your mind.” She pauses for a moment. “Goodbye, Elizabeth.”
Before I have time to react, she raises the run and presses it against the underside of her chin, and then she fires. The right side of her head explodes, sending blood splattering back across the grass, and then her body slumps down and she crashes to the ground.
Horrified, I step back. With the gunshot still ringing in my ears, I can only stare in horror at Wendy's corpse as more and more blood seeps out into the grass.
Elizabeth
Struggling slightly, I finally manage to drag Wendy's body to the edge of the grave and then – with one extra shove – I send her tumbling down to join her husband and daughter.
For a few seconds, I freeze as I see them all down there, and then I blink and their faces change. Now it's no longer Wendy and Patrick and Sammy, it's me and Henry and Mom and Dad. We could so easily have ended up like them, but then I blink again and reality reasserts itself.
Figuring that I need to keep my head straight, I grab the shovel from nearby and start filling the grave, desperate to cover all traces of the Longford family as quickly as possible. I just want to never have to think about them, even as Wendy's words echo in my mind.
“You've fought long and hard, Elizabeth, but now's the time to give up. To slide into death. To accept that fighting on and on forever is completely ludicrous.”
“Never,” I mutter, as my arms begin to ache and I struggle to get all the dirt into the grave.
I don't stop, not even when I feel myself starting to feel faint. All I know is that I have to bury these bodies are fast as possible. Not only because I want to make sure they don't attract wild animals, but also because I want to forget that they were ever here. I don't know what was wrong with the Longford family, but they were each crazy in their own way, and I just want to pretend that I never met them. In particular, I want to forget everything that Wendy said to me, because even now I can feel her words worming their way into my thoughts.
***
“Now's the time to give up.”
Sitting alone at the kitchen table, I stare straight ahead and wait for Wendy to appear. After all, over the past year I've hallucinated several dead people, so it stands to reason that I'll soon start to imagine Wendy's return. She'll haunt me, maybe just as a voice, and she'll try to persuade me that there's no point fighting. I'm ready for her, and I'm going to tell her to go to hell, but first she needs to appear.
“Come on, you bitch,” I whisper, still staring at the empty chair on the far side of the table. “Where are you?”
***
Standing at the window, I watch as the sun casts long shadows across the grass. Ever since I filled the grave, I've been wondering whether that's really the end of the Longford family. What if they come back? What if, like zombies from some melodramatic film, they rise again?
I need to make sure that they don't come back.
***
Gasping for breath, I finally toss the last shovelful of soil to the side, and then I thud down onto the grass. Staring down into the grave, I briefly consider whether I've done the right thing. After all, I'm exhausted now, but at least I've uncovered the three corpses and now I can make sure that they can't possibly come back.
Could they have come back, anyway? They weren't infected, or were they? I don't even know how that works. Better, I guess, to be safe.
Grabbing one of the canisters that I took from the storeroom, I unscrew the lid and then I pour the last of my gasoline down into the grave. I make sure to cover all three bodies, and then I fumble for a match.
“I'm sorry,” I stammer, before lighting the match and dropping it into the pit.
Immediately, flames start roaring from the bodies, accompanied seconds later by a sickening crackling sound. I stare for a moment, to make sure that the three corpses are really burning, and then I step back as I begin to notice a foul smell in the air. A few seconds later, realizing that the smell is coming from the bodies, I turn and step away from the grave, even as I start to feel the flames' heat on the back of my neck.
And that's when it hits me.
I can't stay here.
By staying at the lighthouse, I'm effectively giving up. Nobody's coming to rescue me, and my meager self-sufficience won't last forever. I've already begun to notice that there aren't as many seagulls around, and I figure they're most likely moving further inland now that human civilization has collapsed. I have no idea where I'm going to go, but I'll die if I sit around here for much longer.
“Now's the time to give up,” Wendy's voice whispers in my ear. “To slide into death. To accept that fighting on and on forever is completely ludicrous.”
“No,” I reply firmly, despite the tears in my eyes. “No way.”
***
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Hauling the last of my supplies down the path, I finally stop at the shore and look over at the Longford family's boat. I've never really been on a proper boat before, and I sure as hell don't know how to drive one, but I figure this is my best shot. I'll go somewhere else – anywhere else – and I'll find other people who are surviving.
There are other people out there.
There have to be.
The boat is moored about thirty meters out, but I know from experience that the water is quite shallow, at least at first. My supplies aren't too heavy, so I start wading out toward the boat, although I eventually find that I'm up to my neck. I start swimming, and somehow I manage to reach the ladder at the rear of the boat, and finally I haul myself up. Soaked, I clamber onto the boat and drop my bags, and then I step forward and look around.
This is a nice boat.
I mean, I don't really have much to compare it to, but it's clear that this thing must have cost a fair bit. The sea's not too rough, although as I step forward I find that I have get used to the gentle movement of the deck. Reaching the door that leads down into the guts of the boat, I peer through and see a darkened room with a table on one side and a small kitchen on the other.
So far, so good.
Reaching into my pocket, I take out a set of keys. Patrick put these on the counter in the kitchen, and they were still there this morning. There's a kind of cork ball attached to the keys, which I guess is designed to keep them afloat if they fall into the water, although I'm a little worried about what'll happen when I eventually start the boat's engine.
Still, I've managed to figure things out before.
Realizing that there's no point delaying, I head to the boat's control deck – or whatever it's called – and slip the key into what I assume is the correct slot. I don't even know how much fuel this thing has, and the array of instruments is pretty confusing, but I tell myself that driving a boat can't be that different to driving a car. You simply aim at the direction you want to go, and then you speed up and make sure you don't veer too much to either side.